#58

Yeah, Tasche vs. Tisch

Silly mistake but I was a few beers deep and getting sloppy and overconfident with my german innit

#59

similarly my exā€™s parents had a house in Andalucia they wanted to call it ā€œThree Shellsā€ but accidentally put a sign up at the gate saying ā€œThree Pussiesā€ or something

5 Likes
#60

Were you trying to get cavity search?

#61

I must have been 10 or so, on holiday in Lanzarote. Mum and I went for ice cream. I pointed at the green one and asked for what I thought was going to be mint choc chip. The ice cream seller found my attempts at whatever I was burbling out ā€œIl glace mint chocolat?ā€ or something similar.

Ended up being pistachio.

Hated them ever since.

2 Likes
#62

First time I came to Glasgow to look round we went in this chippy and the woman serving us was Eastern European, we ordered, waited, then the guy frying the chips turned round and started talking to her in Romanian or somethiā€¦ oh know he was talking to us in Glasgwegian. Ignored him the first two times he said whatever it was before realising.

#63

Iā€™ve got a mate who was in Belgium, and wanted a travel adapter to charge his phone or something. He went into a pharmacy and, not speaking the language, said to the guy behind the counter, ā€œerā€¦ travel adapter?ā€

The guy just looked at him, so my mate repeated it slower (classic British person abroad strategy), while making a gesture with his hands that was the left hand flat like a wall, the right with all five fingers in like a spider position pressing against the left (supposed to resemble a plug, I assume).

The guy behind the counter said in perfect English, ā€œYes, I understand you, but this is a pharmacy.ā€

12 Likes
#64

The word ā€œconchaā€ can mean both. My mum pretends she doesnā€™t know that they are different words in English and calls shells ā€œcuntsā€.

6 Likes
#65

:rofl:

#66

This one started off a bit embarrassing but turned out amazing.

Restaurant in Paris, really lovely little place with a wine list as thick as War and Peace and it also doubled up as a chess club so loads of old dudes playing chess at some of the tables. Menu was totally indecipherable to me as a GCSE standard French speaker. Can normally get the gist - ok this oneā€™s chicken, beef etc - but I didnā€™t understand a word. Feeling tired and not up for trying to converse with the waiter we decided to pick stuff at random, but the waiter started asking us questionsā€¦ we stared blankly back at himā€¦ he started pointing to various things on the menu and doing animal impressions and pointing to unlikely bits of his body - arse, feet etc. Eventually he took us into the actual kitchen and gave us little tastes of everything - like EVERYTHING to the extent we were quite full afterwards. The thing I remember most was these little stuffed chicken stomachs that I obviously liked so much he just kept giving me one after the other, and eating them himself, and gave us some shots back there and stuff. Lovely stuff.

#67

Confusing the French for ā€˜I am hotā€™ as in temperature with ā€˜I am in heatā€™ i.e. I want the sex

2 Likes
#68

I went on a school trip to Berlin not long after the wall came down - you could travel to the eastern side but it was still v v different to the western side

A girl in the group I was with wanted camera film - so we dopily filed into the chemists, only to find wooden counters and all the stock in little wooden drawers behind those counters

there was no camera film as it wasnā€™t like Boots

#69

I think that this my favourite so far

#70

First time in Berlin I didnā€™t realise that if you say ā€œthank you/dankeā€ as you hand over money for something it means ā€œkeep the changeā€. THought we were being comprehensively fleeced by literally every vendor we encountered from the taxi driver from the airport to the first coffee we bought etc etc until in a bar on our first night the bartender explained to us our error as we apparently were about to give him a 45 euro tip for a couple of bottles of amstel.

2 Likes
#71

This happened to me in America. Sort of. I didnā€™t know you had to ask for your change, or it was assumed you were tipping. Bought a water with a $20, and when they thanked me profusely, I thought it was just that fabled American customer service with a smile.

#72

is that really a thing? Only been to new york but didnā€™t get a whiff of this at all. Donā€™t think Iā€™d be able to cope in situations where a tip may or may not be expected and the amount of change due would be a reasonable amount if I was required to pointedly ask for my change.

1 Like
#73

Iā€™ve always been used to the waiter providing change but purposefully in the sort of denominations that make it easy for the customer to pull some notes out for a tip.

#74

Same in german, Ich bin heiss vs. Mir ist heiss (not sure if those are conjugated properly but u get me)

3 Likes
#76

Yeah normally when you hand over the money you say a rounded up number of how much they should keep.

So like if the price is ā‚¬12 youā€™d say for example:

ā€œBitte vierzehnā€ fourteen please.

Normally you round up a euro or two.

1 Like
#77

Those are right. Mir means ā€œto meā€. Die GebrĆ¼der Chuckeln sagen immer ā€œzu mir, zu dirā€.

Ich bin kalt. I am frigid.

Ich bin warm. I am camp. (With a sort of Carry On Film vibe)

Ich bin heiss. I am horny.

Also schwĆ¼l is humid/muggy
And schwul is gay

(There is a connection there though with the warm thing. Like interwar slang for a gay man was ā€œWarmer Bruderā€)

#78

Reminds me of being at Niagra Falls and my German friends laughing at a group of American tourists with name badges because their surname was ā€œGeilā€.

3 Likes